CHOP WOOD CARRY WATER

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Color. Color sings, color plays, color begs, color wins. Color hopes......When all is said and done, there is only color but color says, "I'm not alone." There is shape, texture, and all the other sisterfs of design.Nothing stands alone, nothing works alone, it takes unity to be meaningful. And so I rejoice in colorf, knowing that she is not the only muse. The process works.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Wax Crrayons, fabric paint, lau8ndry marker on coitton,. Geavt machine texturing with decorative stitches. P)olyester/silk wwadding/batting, layering of pattern on pattern. Automaatic writing, a surrealist techniqu4e, has always interested me. And it is the approach that I use in mark-making. I have been esploring lace, lace-maiing, and linguistics of lace on my sketchbook aand in my internal visions for a numbref of motnhs now. This is the firsgt in what I hope to be a long, continued seies, ultimately6 leading to the creation of a lace quilt or quilted lace orf something else I've brn reading the blogs of Artmixter, Dijanne Cervaal, and Fiona Wright recently, and I've drawn much inspiration from all of them as well as gthe brfilliant work on the Digital Shibori site. We do not work in a vacuum. We draw from the same well each presenting a unique vision delivered through personal process.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

I once wanted to be famous. Now, I just want to be myself. Hence the name of this blog. In living the simple life or a t least a version of it, the essential things must be done. You oust chop wood to build a fire, and carry water to cook, bathe, clean and make art. I admit,of course, that it come from Zen thought, and that seems to be the most suitable place for me at present.

I'm exploring watercolour for the first time to a greater extant. I always found it to be an unforgiving medium, but that thought is quickly changing as I discoverthe notes, syntax, andpunctuation necessary for the language. I still seek the language of cloth, I seek to understand it to communicate an to listen to it. I've been dyeing and painting bandage Gauss and am exploring it as a new series emerges.; Bangers for the s9ul, so to speak. Ah well, we can't all be famous, even the famous have to be themselves. Our lives play out on a web, woven just for us and sometimes we walk it and it trembles, and sometimes we tremble.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

My life has changed so drastically in the last month, that I cannot even begin tio comprehend much less describe the difference. I am a prisoner of sorts, captive but not for crime, but by disease and physical incapacities. I am an artist withoiut a physical studio, but somehow, somewherfe, the strength to create an inner studio has come to me. I had given up hope fo ever being able to do anything as even the use of a computer was in question, but the Gods must be in a generous mood. I am under nursing care, but my sister has made arrangements for materials, limited, a small sewing machine, and my computer to be availble to me. For this I am truly thankful. But first I must recitify some wrongs and again my sister is assiting me. I hope that I'll be able to do so. Taking part in online actiivities is great fun, but when you become a burden and inadvertentlky do a disservice to your felloiw paritiipants, it rankles and causes hurt unnecessarily. I am guilty, not by choice, but by circumstance, and I am trying to rectify that. I oiffer a small digital painting for viewing. I am working on a small piece of fiber. I had no fabric, but the nurses have given me yards of bandage gauze and I have painted and begun stitching some of it. I hope to make some Soul Bandages with the materials I've been given.